ATF's Gun Tracing System Is A Dud

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is using 1960s era technology to manage a 21st century problem. When will this get fixed?

A key piece of the White House's gun control plan -- the process by which the feds use serial numbers and descriptions to trace the original source of a gun sale -- is at risk of failure. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is using 1960s era technology to manage a 21st century problem. And nothing is being done to fix it.

ATF's Firearms Tracing System lets local, state and federal law enforcement officials determine the "chain of custody" of confiscated weapons. But the ATF's "system" is a national embarrassment. It's mostly a manual process based on the use of microfilm/microfiche, the same technology that libraries used 50 years ago to archive newspapers and magazines.

Here's how the Firearms Tracing System works: When a trace request comes in to ATF's National Tracing Center, often by telephone, employees trek to the microfilm department, where 500 million records are stored. They retrieve microfilm cases from a shelf, search the records using a special reader that magnifies the itsy-bitsy images, and report their findings to the law enforcement agency that put in the request. Urgent requests are turned around within 24 hours, but that's the exception. The process generally takes five days.

That's not nearly good enough. If you've ever used a smartphone to create a digital image of a check for deposit, you're a few tech generations -- and about four days, 23 hours and 55 minutes -- ahead of the Firearms Tracing System.

As the Obama administration, in the wake of the Newtown tragedy, pushes for gun control -- "gun safety" is the term the White House favors -- the Firearms Tracing System is drawing attention. Critics refer to the system as "horse and buggy" technology, according to a recent piece by CBS news. Attorney General Eric Holder paid a visit to the National Tracing Center in Martinsburg, W.Va., to have a look for himself. (ATF is part of the Department of Justice.) There's only one conclusion Holder could reach: The Firearms Tracking System needs updating.

ATF CIO Rick Holgate, an experienced technology executive with degrees from Princeton and MIT, is the first to agree. In an hour-long interview with InformationWeek Government at the agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters, Holgate described the microfilm system as a "target of opportunity."

He would like to replace the microfilm with a modern imaging system capable of processing gun records much faster and more efficiently. A new system would cost about $4 million, Holgate estimates -- not cheap, but a small price to pay to expedite this important process. The ATF's tech budget is about $80 million, minus $10 million to $15 million if sequestration takes full effect.

But as important as it is, upgrading the Firearms Tracing Systems hasn't risen to the top of the ATF's priority list. Holgate has his hands full with a long list of other projects: moving the agency's email system to the cloud, making aggregate gun-trace data available in an open format, modernizing and integrating the agency's other legacy systems and, most recently, moving its email archive online to facilitate e-discovery. "It's not that [replacing] microfiche isn't important," Holgate says. "It just has to compete with other priorities."

If you're wondering why the ATF doesn't replace its kludge of a system with a state-of-the-art database management system that could locate documents in minutes instead of days, it's because there are laws against it. The agency is restricted by the Firearms Owners Protection Act from creating a national database of gun registrations, sales or owners. The influential National Rifle Association gets fidgety at the mere mention of a centralized firearms database. So ATF must concentrate on accessing, integrating and managing the records that are available under current law.

While microfilm is at the core of the Firearms Tracing System, there's actually more to it. The system pulls together information from a variety of sources, mostly Oracle databases. The agency is upgrading those systems on top of Oracle's Web services-based Fusion architecture "to allow us to extend it more readily," Holgate says. A Web front end called eTrace lets law enforcement officials submit requests for gun traces and get the results back.

But there's no escaping the grunt work involved on the back end of gun tracing. Out-of-business gun dealers are one source of records for the Firearms Tracing System. As required by law, however, those records arrive as paper documents, which are then converted by the ATF to electronic images. The various imaging systems ATF uses were "purpose built," Holgate says, a nice way of saying that those too are a hodge-podge. ATF and DOJ are moving in parallel toward a common, enterprise approach to imaging, he says.

Other ATF platforms with a gun control element are in need of attention. ATF operates a referral system that links to the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System, aka NICS. When a would-be gun buyer completes an application (ATF Form 4473) at the point of purchase, the FBI has three days to complete a background check or, by law, that transaction is allowed to go through.

If disqualifying information is discovered after the three-day approval deadline, it becomes a "delayed denial," in which case ATF agents have the sensitive job of repossessing the firearm. Those potentially dangerous situations could be minimized if the FBI and ATF were better at information sharing. At the time of our interview, Holgate was due to meet with the FBI within a few days to discuss next steps. One idea is to include a subset of Form 4473 data in the FBI NICS to establish more data consistency and introduce fewer errors.

Accurate, timely data sharing between ATF and the FBI becomes especially important as the number of background checks rises, as it's sure to under the White House initiative. The FBI already conducts more than 45,000 gun-related background checks a day. (For more, see "Federal Gun Control Requires IT Overhaul.")

Did I mention that the number of gun traces, now about 350,000 annually, is going to increase, as well? In mid-January, when Obama introduced 23 executive orders on gun safety, he also issued a memo requiring federal law enforcement organizations to submit trace requests for all guns recovered during the course of a criminal investigation. It's a good bet that heightened awareness in communities nationwide will cause more local and state police to request gun traces too.

In other words, there will be even more trips to the ATF's microfilm department, more eye-straining records searches, more lengthy turnarounds to answer a simple question about a gun's origins. Holgate says he hopes to find the resources to upgrade the Firearms Tracing System "in the next year or so."

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I simply can't condone the idea of relying on broken systems and processes to support a top-priority national policy where "risk management" involves personal safety and homeland security. With such great tech companies and so many innovative technologists here in the US, we should have world-class gun tracing systems and processes. No excuses.

Why is is possible for me to trace the history of an automobile (or an airplane for that matter) back to the day it was manufactured, but not do the same for a gun? Seems only fair that, since both are potentially lethal in the hands of the wrong person, they should be treated the same.

We recently tried to open a new bank account to deposit the monies from a house sale. It has already taken over a week and the account is still "under review" (new Federal guidlines I'm told).

But, it appears that I will only need to wait a maximum of 3 days by law to get my hands on a lethal weapon.

Does that suggest the rather screwed up state of this country?

For starters we don't have to spend my tax dollars to modernize the ATF system. Just let the person wanting to buy the gun wait a bit longer (at least two weeks or more). Give them time to reflect on the reason for the purchase. That shouldn't require any serious change in a law.

It's not a bug, it's a feature. We don't want the government to have the data. There's no reason for them to have the data. What data they do have should be impossible to use as a registry.

If you think the argument about "Assault Weapons" is bad, suggest a national firearms registry. The ATF building with these records would have to be guarded like Ft. Knox or it would get burned down by an angry mob.

If ATF's system is so antiquated, they why are they requiring (since 2008) that firearms dealers provide a digital ASCII file of their Out-of-Business records? Doesn't sound like microfiche to me.... Sounds a lot more like a digital system of registration.

"13. Upon termination of a license, the FFL must provide an American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) text file (in conformity with industry standards) and a file description, in addition to printouts of all records, to the ATF Out-of-Business Records Center. The printout and ASCII text file must contain the information as prescribed by regulation. All records must be forwarded to the ATF Out-of-Business Records Center in accordance with 27 CFR 478.127, including complete printouts, and ASCII text file (and file description) of the A&D records, and all ATF Forms 4473."

The Firearms Tracing System as it exists isn't much of a system (microfiche is offline storage), which is why I used quote marks around the term in my column. Better to call it the Firearms Tracing Process. I'm not convinced that ATF is outside the scope of the law with its current approach, but I have no doubt there's room for interpretation. Maybe the answer, for those of us who want current federal policy and law properly implemented, is develop better real-time processes that are tech-enabled out on the edges. The records would remain with the gun sellers (federal firearms licensees) until required as part of a criminal investigation, at which point digitization and automation would streamline information sharing. At the same time, microfiche would be upgraded to a newer platform with better search capabilities. As I said in an earlier comment, there should be a better way of doing this while staying within the law.

ATF is already in violation of the Firearm Owners Protection Act, but profess that any system of records begun prior to enactment in 1986 are exempt from the law.... Note that the law does not exempt paper nor microfilm registration records. It specifically prohibits "any system of registration of firearms, firearm owners, or firearms transactions or disposition". The ATF Firearms Tracing System is precisely such a registration system prohibited by law.

"No such rule or regulation prescribed [by the Attorney General] after the date of the enactment of the Firearms Owners Protection Act may require that records required to be maintained under this chapter or any portion of the contents of such records, be recorded at or transferred to a facility owned, managed, or controlled by the United States or any State or any political subdivision thereof, nor that any system of registration of firearms, firearms owners, or firearms transactions or disposition be established. Nothing in this section expands or restricts the Secretary's authority to inquire into the disposition of any firearm in the course of a criminal investigation."

Nevertheless, the ATF Firearms Tracing System (FTS) contains hundreds of millions of firearm tracing and registration records, and consists of several databases:

1. Multiple Sale Reports. Over 460,000 (2003) Multiple Sales reports (ATF F 3310.4 - a registration record with specific firearms and owner name and address - increasing by about 140,000 per year). Reported as 4.2 million records in 2010.

2. Suspect Guns. All guns "suspected" of being used for criminal purposes but not recovered by law enforcement. This database includes (ATF's own examples), individuals purchasing large quantities of firearms, and dealers with improper record keeping. May include guns observed by law enforcement in an estate, or at a gun show, or elsewhere. Reported as 34,807 in 2010.

3. Traced Guns. Over 4 million detail records from all traces since inception.This is a registration record which includes the personal information of the first retail purchaser, along with the identity of the selling dealer.

4. Out of Business Records. Data is manually collected from paper Out-of-Business records (or input from computer records) and entered into the trace system by ATF. These are registration records which include name and address, make, model, serial and caliber of the firearm(s), as well as data from the 4473 form - in digital or image format. In March, 2010, ATF reported receiving several hundred million records since 1968.

5. Theft Guns. Firearms reported as stolen to ATF. Contained 330,000 records in 2010. Contains only thefts from licensed dealers and interstate carriers (optional). Does not have an interface to the FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC) theft data base, where the majority of stolen, lost and missing firearms are reported.

You are correct except on one minor point, which is a major issue: the laws SHOULD be changed.The ability to track, as well as form a permanent registry is the only effective way to properly regulate the business of death.Frankly if we can do it, and ensure insurance and other minimum safety requirements for cars, trains, busses, and airplanes which 'might' be dangerour or even deadly, as a matter of national security & public safety, then we SHOULD be able to do so for weapons whose sole purpose is to injure or kill.Not only that, but it will provide a wealth of currently lost revenue.

In 1999 and 2000 UNISYS pitched a database to the ATF to replace the obsolescent software. We were resoundingly rejected, based upon the admission that Congress was no longer adequately supporting the ATF. We thought that odd, as ATF falls under Department of Treasury jurisdiction. Treas. is the umbrella that also covers the IRS & Secret Service, supposedly teflon budgets so we were greatly surprised.Consequently Unisys dropped that entire contract, and the Bureau chief was converted to a Temporary position...NRA lobbyists have anything to do with this? You be the judge.